Today in Jülich, Germany, D-Wave Systems announced the launch of the first Leap quantum cloud-based system outside North America at Forschungszentrum Jülich Supercomputing Centre. A commissioning ceremony, with Germany’s Federal Minister of Education and Research Bettina Stark-Watzinger, North Rhine-Westphalia Minister President Hendrik Wüst, EU Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, Canadian Ambassador Stéphane Dion, and business and academic leaders, marks quantum computing’s advancement in Europe.
The partnership provides access to the Advantage quantum system, which contains more than 5000 qubits and will be available to European users at Forschungszentrum Jülich immediately in the cloud via Leap. This marks the first-ever annealing quantum computer physically located in Europe.
The expansion is part of the Jülich User Infrastructure for Quantum Computing (JUNIQ), which has provided researchers across Europe with access to various quantum systems since 2019. Newly appointed German Federal Minister of Education and Research Bettina Stark-Watzinger; North Rhine-Westphalia's Minister President Hendrik Wüst; Mariya Gabriel, EU Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth; and Canadian Ambassador Stéphane Dion launched the system in an event today, along with D-Wave’s CEO Alan Baratz and CaixaBank’s CEO Gonzalo Gortazar, showcasing the importance of collaboration on practical quantum application development across industries and research fields.
Alan Baratz, CEO, D-Wave comments: ‘As businesses and research organisations identify mission-critical problems in need of quantum investment, the market opportunity for quantum computing grows faster than ever. This is particularly true in Europe, where we’re seeing an increasing number of enterprises, universities, and even government entities across the continent already begin to benefit from access to quantum technologies. We are excited to bring Forschungszentrum Jülich’s deep computing expertise and D-Wave’s transformational quantum computing technology together. I’m proud that this is the first commercial quantum computing system in-region in Europe and am excited to see the innovations and applications which come with the installation of this system.’
Forschungszentrum Jülich has announced their goal of establishing a leading development and user community from industry and business for quantum computing applications in Germany and Europe. ‘To this end, we have created JUNIQ at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, a user facility for open innovation that provides users with a unified quantum computing platform as a service and the associated competencies for user support and joint software development,’ explains Professor Wolfgang Marquardt, chairman of the board of directors of the Research Center. ‘With JUNIQ, we provide users and developers with service-oriented access to our unique Jülich quantum computing ecosystem, which, due to its excellent technical equipment, but especially due to the bundling of our strong expertise in supercomputing and quantum technologies, offers the best conditions to rapidly advance the value-added use of quantum computers.’
The new quantum system is the second D-Wave quantum computer within the JUNIQ user infrastructure and the world's first Advantage system located outside the company's headquarters in Canada. ‘We operate the system right here at Jülich - this gives us the opportunity to integrate it closely into our supercomputing infrastructure,’ explains Professor Kristel Michielsen, a pioneer in quantum computing and head of the Quantum Information Processing group at JSC.
Michael Spannowsky, director of the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology at Durham University states: ‘At Durham University, researchers have been working with D-Wave for the last 4 years and are excited to see our quantum computing research on efficient wireless sensor networks gain traction. Successful early quantum applications are integral to the future of academic research and how that research can impact businesses and governments. That’s why being able to access a European-specific system is critical for forward-thinking European organisations looking to solve highly complex problems today.’
D-Wave’s quantum computers, which have been available to European users via the cloud since 2019, are particularly suitable for solving difficult optimisation problems. Optimisation use cases are ubiquitous in industry and are interesting because of their computational complexity, for example: efficient control of traffic flows, financial modeling, preventative healthcare, manufacturing, logistics and more. To date, the company's customers have developed more than 250 early quantum applications in fields as diverse as financial modeling, flight planning, election modeling, quantum chemistry simulation, automotive engineering, health care, logistics, and more.
D-Wave's Advantage quantum system is the first and only quantum computer designed with industrial applications in mind. The Jülich system has the newest Advantage performance update, with 5000+ qubits, the highly connected Pegasus topology, and the greatest performance yet in a commercial quantum system. The new building at Jülich was constructed for the quantum system and was inaugurated today alongside the commissioning of the European Advantage quantum system. The system is now open for general availability for European researchers and customers via the Leap quantum cloud service.
‘We are pleased and excited for today’s announcement,’ said Dr. Baratz. ‘We appreciate the pan-European support from the government officials, business leaders, and research community and look forward to continued innovation which we know will come from this European-based system.’
